Honour The Call of Battlefield 4

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That is a picture of my face at the precise moment I first read that there was probably going to be a sequel to a first-person shooter that sold millions of copies.

Truly, what a world of wonders and surprise we live in. The ‘news’ was outed by EA themselves, when Origin briefly offered ‘Battlefield 4 beta access’ to folk who pre-ordered the upcoming Medal of Honor: Worf Fighter.

The message (seen by DigitalSpy) has since been withdrawn, and presumably a very frightened man is crawling on his hands and knees towards the EA boardroom even as we speak, leaving us to wonder whether it meant exactly what it said or was placeholder text that might refer to a different Battlefield – for instance, Bad Company 3.

To speak of BF4 so soon is slightly odd given BF3 seems like it’s still got some DLC legs in it yet what with Premium. Then again, Battlefield probably the biggest gun in EA’s unnecessary war against Call of Duty- so it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if they were intending to franchise it up the wazoo. More so than they already do, I mean.

Which brings me back to my original point: financially successful game in sequel shocker.

It’s likely that they’re already a reasonable way through the BF4 development, so Mirror’s Edge 2 may not be so far off.
Besides, it’s hardly unheard of for a developer to have multiple teams working on multiple projects. DICE seems like it’d almost certainly be large enough to warrant such a thing.

I love my free market, but he’s not wrong. This is capitalism. If they didn’t make money, they wouldn’t do it. If he wants an gaming industry without capitalism, then it would be nothing but hobbyist creating games. If he wants low-budget games, there are plenty of Independent PC games. I, on the other hand, would much prefer to also have the option of purchasing high-quality, high-budget games.

I am definitely going to make a big forum discussion about capitalism/marxism and video games soon because it’s quite an interesting topic. I think the problem lies in corporate culture that’s driven by large faceless shareholder driven companies like EA. Valve, for instance, can put together incredible AAA games, make bucketloads of money and regardless of your personal opinions about how they operate they are far far less exploitative than many other companies, so I think that’s a model for success for maintaining creativity whilst pooling large amounts of capital.

Given how BF3 came out, the bunch of broken promises DICE gave us, the DLCs, the lack of true dedicated servers and the fact that you have to sell your soul to Origin to play it, I’d say that Battlefield 4 is meh news.

Yeah, after how BF3 turned out and the whole “Premium” deal, I won’t be buying another game from the series again. Good thing Planetside 2 is coming out, that should fill my needs for online shooters for the next few years, and at least they’re honest about their monetization model.

Not sure what the objections to Premium are about. It’s just a pre-order for all the future DLC at a discounted rate, plus a few other perks. To me it’s much less objectionable than what Activision have done with CoD Elite.

Spare me your condescension. Oh wait, I forgot, this is RPS – unless it’s a 2D platforming indie game that some amateur whipped together in a couple of weeks, it’s the scourge of the industry and is worthy of naught but scathing criticism.

I don’t see anything about BF3 premium that makes it worse than what A) EA/Dice has done with past BF titles and B) other companies are doing with similar products.

Because putting out a bunch of different DLC map packs splits the community, because the unlock system is designed to be far too grindy to sell more unlock DLC, because you have to pay another $50 on top of the base game to even get on the popular servers anymore since premium players get priority in queues, and a bunch of other reasons.

Yep, I’m out, I was all “YAY OMG BATTLEFIELD HIT PRE-ORDER NAO!!!” back in the day and after all the gameplay and trailers and whatnot regarding the new engine and everything, but screw this, especially after all the DLC and microtransaction shenanigans they pulled with 3. They might as well double down on more Origin DRM and instate a “Subscription Service” like CoD, I don’t care anymore.

According to Wikipedia, there have been 21 BF-releases in 10 years. And people complain about it being shite? That’s essentially the same model as WoW: 120 bucks a year for incremental updates to the same game.

1942, 2 and 3, the ones that are part of the series proper, are the only ones that matter. As such seeing BF4, the 4 suggesting it is supposed to be another part of this chain, so soon is somewhat of a surprise. If this was another Vietnam or 2142 nobody would be shocked. (And Bad Company barely counts as a BF game. BC is the quirky console centric offshoot of the BF series)

Well, there’s no connection among any of those games anyway. So, as an individual, you’re free to sample the game iterations as often as you like. Buy every 2nd or 3rd game, this way, you won’t be paying 60 bucks for each iteration.

I’d be happy to buy bad company three. Console centric or no, bc2 had utterly brilliant multiplayer, and even the campaign was better than bf3’s (except for that incredible tank sequence, that was grade-a stuff and i will defend those missions against the haters. That character completely outshone everything else in the rest of the campaign).

@Kdansky
That’s beside the point I am making, which is that a lot of people, a few comments below mine even, are saying this is suddenly the franchise turning bad, when it is in-fact business as usual

@Zwa
That is true, but brand recognition is really important these days They want to make sure people associate this new game with the previous one, where as if they called it 2143 people might think it’s a spin-off ala the Black Ops series for Call of Duty.

I’m not defending anything but I’m with-holding my outrage until we actually see the game, not just it’s name

edit: I actually don’t agree that Vietnam and 2142 are to be discounted. Because they were based on the existing technology does not diminish them as games and in fact that’s what I expect from this BF4: a game built on the existing technology, but not the same game.

That said this is A LOT of speculation based on very little at this point

Not because of the game’s quality – it was okay despite DICE being characteristically sluggish fixing the bugs they introduced in patches – but because of the fucking terrible DLC map packs strategy (which they’d originally promised they wouldn’t do).

Battlefield 1942 in 2002.
Vietnam in 2004.
Battlefield 2 in 2005.
2142 in 2006.
Bad Company in 2008.
Bad Company 2 in 2010.
Battlefield 3 in 2011.

The last DLC piece of BF3 lands in the first quarter of 2013. I would expect a sequel to the BF series (2143, Bad Company 3 or BF4) in the third or fourth quarter of 2013.
That means it would follow the exact same pattern DICE has *always had*.

how dare you bring logic and common sense into the argument…………..Seriously. The truth has not place here.

Next thing you are going to tell me is that the DLC packs for BF3 which are milking the franchise happen to be the same basic thing as the booster packs from bf2, only they are more content than the old booster packs.

more importantly, what can we learn about Alec from this picture? I can deduce that he apparently works in a cupboard which contains mattresses and guitar bags. Also there may recently have been an earthquake nearby

Oh great, we can look forward to a new buggy cash grab game every year now?!
Battlefield 2013. Battlefield 2014, 2015, 2016!! YES YES YES!
WITH 20 DLC’S FOR EACH ONE!??! YES YES YES YES!!!!
/me tosses all of his monies to EA
YOU GUYS ARE BRILLIANT!!!

But to reality now… What the serious fuck? (The situation calls for the language, my apologies.)
I can’t even enjoy BF3 yet as it seems dead whenever I try to play (Why or how no idea.)
It feels like a clunky piece of shit with no hit detection.. And that fucking SUN GLARE… RAAAGE.
It’s so bad, so bad. Wasted 60 bucks in my mind. Won’t buy their yearly shit, not even a consideration!

With that being said, I’m still enjoying the elder BF games, and will continue to do so.
I play with a group of pals on skype all the time, BC2. Maybe not as great as BF2..
But a hell of a lot more functional than BF3 is. And honestly, looks nicer to me.
Though I do realize technically it’s not, I just find the style of BF3 weird tbh.
Sort of looks like a cracked out painting to me, when maxed. Blurry..
Even with post processing off, still looks like a blury blinding TURD TURD.

I tend to buy a shooter about every two years or so, and put a few hundred hours into it until the next big thing to grab me arrives.

So far, those have been BF2, L4D, BF:BC2 and L4D2. I suspect that my Next Big Thing is going to be Planetside 2, and if that’s the case, BF4 (or whatever it might be) is going to take no notes out of my wallet.

I’d buy a new BF game in a heartbeat though, if it was truly great – up to the 1942 or BF2 level. With features like the COmmander, and sorting out chat channels for vehicles, and all the rest of it. Don’t see it happening, mind you.

So there goes EA’s whole bit about Bad Company and the mainline Battlefield series co-existing. They’re clearly just turning Battlefield into a console affair. I could see releasing Bad Company 3 next year, but Battlefield 4? Come on EA.

The word “Beta” has lost it’s meaning, it was supposed to be actual bug testing that is controlled(like planetside 2 is doing) and not a showcase demo(Smite is excluded because it’s super fun).
And now Ea is bringing their new evolution of it, Pay 70 dollars for a CoD clone that is made by dice to play the beta(That you’ll probably have to wait months, if not next year for it)..

The spirit of this franchise died with BF2142. The hiring and firing of the Desert Combat mod devs after Battlefield 2’s completion shouldn’t have been ignored by me. I only wish i had come to my senses sooner. I continued to support these arrogant and dismissive assholes in hopes that they would return the series to its former glory. That’s the only reason why i purchased Bad Company 2. Instead, they chose dumb down the team oriented and tactical aspects of Battlefield 2 even further along with completely dropping LAN and mod support. Don’t even get me started on the horrendous PC interface and the draconian DRM that’s disguised as a glorified Facebook clone.